California Orphan Site Cleanup

California Orphan Site Cleanup Subaccount
Funds are available in California for the cleanup of brownfields sites contaminated by leaking underground storage tanks where there is no financially responsible party.

General Information

In EPA Region 9, the Underground Storage Tanks Program Office (USTPO) works to prevent leaks from USTs, clean up contaminated sites, and redevelop formerly contaminated sites into beneficial use. We oversee state UST/LUST programs and partner closely with our tribes and Pacific island territories. Our program has direct implementation over tribes and island territories. Several tribes and territories in Region 9 have their own UST programs and staffs which work cooperatively with EPA to oversee and regulate UST facilities on their lands.

Over the last two decades, EPA and its partners closed over 1.5 million substandard tanks that were corroding and leaking petroleum into the nation's groundwater; cleaned up more than 300,000 petroleum leaks; and reduced the number of new releases from a high of over 66,000 in 1990 to roughly 12,000 in 2003. Today, tank systems are much less likely to leak and cause significant environmental problems.